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| Not shown: a real, honest-to-goodness altar rail. |
What’s wrong with the word radical? On the surface, nothing; to say someone is a radical X is to say he favors fundamental or
thoroughgoing change.
However, the dictionary definition doesn’t always capture
the emotive content of a word. In this respect, radical suffers from too long association with the more offensive
and disturbing manifestations of political activism. To many people, the radical
is a fellow traveler of the extremist, the kind of person who won’t go so far
as to throw bombs but who will gladly inconvenience others by taking over school
buildings or parks in the name of X.
The extremist is a wild-eyed nutjob, while the radical is merely a pain in the
ass.
On Thursday, Catholic
Stand published “Tradition vs.
traditionalism” (don’t read it just yet), in which Your Humble Blogger
wrote of a tendency within a segment of the traditionalist community to
conflate the traditional Latin Mass with the apostolic tradition. To try to isolate
this segment from the rest of the traditionalist community, I used the term “radical
traditionalist”. Twice.
It was a risky choice, because some people, especially liberal
dissidents, speak of “radical traditionalists” as if all traditionalists were
part of a lunatic fringe group. So, as could be reasonably expected, it blew up
in my face.
Spirit Daily
picked up the piece and drove a lot of traffic to the post, where
traditionalists chastised me for painting them with a broad brush; one woman
claimed I had “politely defecated” [?] on the traditionalist movement. While one or
two couldn’t help but illustrate my point much better than I did, for the most
part the combox left me feeling a bit like a bush-league Joseph
Bottum: “Waitaminnit, that’s not
what I meant!”
Misunderstandings — both accidental and intentional — are
part of this mug’s game. You want to be universally loved? Don’t have an
opinion; if you do, keep it to yourself. Never, never, never miss a good chance
to shut up. But if you believe, as I do, that silence is consent, then you have
to accept that you won’t win any Mr. Congeniality contests. In fact, it’s much
like basketball — if you don’t commit at least one foul a game, if no one is ever
pissed off by what you say, then either you’re writing Hallmark cards or you’re
not really trying.
But I can’t let go of this, because while I’m confident that
my argument was valid — pace Kate Edwards of Australia
Incognita, the Catechism of the Catholic
Church §83 does
distinguish between the message and the message transmitters — the fact remains
that I gave the wrong impression. I have
a lot of sympathy for the traditionalist movement. It’s only because the
nearest Latin Mass is well over an hour away and I have a semi-invalid mother
to care for that I go to the Novus Ordo
Mass at the parish around the corner.
I don’t necessarily agree with every argument traditionalists
make, especially concerning the right of the Pope and the College of Bishops to
change the liturgy. But I do agree in principle that the post-Vatican II “reforms” did much to impoverish Catholic spiritual
life and degrade catechesis. I also agree that, while the most recent
revision of the English Missal was a step in the right direction, the Mass of
Paul VI still suffers in comparison with the usus antiquior.
I failed to make that clear. I failed to say, in so many
words, “Hey, you guys, I’m with you at least 75% of the way; you just need to
stop talking about Novus Ordo
Catholics as if they’re nigh unto being de facto Methodists.”
Mea culpa, mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa … or, as we say in the new revision, “Through my fault, through
my fault, through my most grievous fault.”
To say that it’s the apostolic tradition, the living
transmission of the Gospel of Christ, which unites us, and that the form of the
Mass can be changed at need, is not to say that the liturgy is of small concern.
Au contraire, the liturgy is of great
concern:
“The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the font from which all her power flows” (Sacrosanctum concilium 10). It is therefore the privileged place for catechizing the People of God. “Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men” (Bl. John Paul II, Catechesi tradendae 23).[1]
Again, to say that our beliefs unite us is not to say that
Catholicism is reducible just to the beliefs themselves. Rather,
traditionalists like Edwards are quite correct in pointing out that “The
Catholic faith is not just a body of doctrines, not just what we believe, but
also a way of praying (worship) and a way of living (morality, the golden rule,
charity, joy etc).”
The rule is Lex
orandi, lex credendi — loosely translated, “What we pray is what we
believe.” That, I
pointed out some time ago, is why the text of the Novus Ordo Mass needed correction: the 1973 translation “dumbed
down” many prayers to the point where it was difficult to distinguish anything
particularly Catholic about them — they were “flat, insipid and darn near
non-denominational”. That is why we feel so keenly the
catechists’ neglect of traditional prayers and devotions, such as the Angelus
and the Stations of the Cross, that once played a major role in passing on the
Catholic faith.
And do we need to talk about such abominations as liturgical
puppets and clown Masses? I don’t hold, as some traditionalists do, that
they’re direct consequences of changing the Mass. But I do hold that the same
loss of sight, the same craving for fashionable novelty, that led to junking so
many traditional devotional practices also led to such demeaning, debilitating
nonsense.
And this is why the “Novus
Ordo Catholics aren’t real
Catholics” mentality that some traditionalists have taken concerns me: it
alienates potential supporters. Forget whether this mentality is true of all
traditionalists; isn’t it bad enough that it’s true of some traditionalists? And do other traditionalists feel no
responsibility for allowing the sentiment a place at the table?
I really do want the
traditionalist movement to succeed. If it’s not possible to restore the Latin
Mass to the ordinary form, then at least we could have an English-language
version of the Tridentine Mass that respects its majesty and returns our focus
to proper worship of God. I see so many other traditional elements of Catholic
culture being resurrected that I’m positive the traditionalist movement could
succeed … as long as traditionalists don’t get in their own way with an
off-putting pharisaical elitism.
Because the point of the traditions is to pass on the Gospel
message — that we are all sinners, and stand in need of Christ’s reconciling
sacrifice. There is no room in this Gospel for superiority: “for every one who
exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted”
(Luke 18:10-14).
And that was what I
meant.
[1]
Catechism of the Catholic Church
1074.
